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'Viva Fidel!', Cubans begin mass mourning

Flag-waving Cuban students broke into a mass chant of "I am Fidel" to salute Fidel Castro as nine days of mourning began for the combative Cold War icon, who dominated the Communist island's political life for generations.

Alcohol sales were suspended, flags flew at half-mast and shows and concerts were cancelled after his younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, told the country on Friday that Fidel had died.

Giant rallies are planned in Havana's Revolution Square and in the eastern city of Santiago to honour Castro, who died aged 90, six decades after the brothers set out from Mexico to overthrow US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Newspapers on the island of 11 million people were printed in black ink to mourn Fidel, instead of the usual red of the official Communist Party daily Granma, and the blue of Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), the paper of the Communist youth.

There was no heightened military or police presence to mark the passing of the epochal revolutionary leader, and at Havana University, Castro's alma mater, hundreds of students gathered to wave huge Cuban flags and shout "Viva Fidel and Viva Raul."

"Fidel isn't dead because the people are Fidel," shouted a local student leader dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. "I am Fidel," he continued, a refrain quickly adopted by the crowd.

"Fidel put Cuba on the map, and made Cuba a paradigm for the people of the world, especially the poor and the marginalised," said another university student, Raul Alejandro Palmeros.